20 A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 



recollections of the late James K. Polk. This being so, I 

 have sometimes wondered that the peep-shows which Nature 

 provides with such endless variety for her children, and to 

 which we are admitted on the bare condition of having eyes, 

 should be so generally neglected. To be sure, eyes are not 

 so common as people think, or poets would be plentier, and 

 perhaps also these exhibitions of hers are cheapened in esti 

 mation by the fact that in enjoying them we are not getting 

 the better of anybody else. Your true lovers of nature, how 

 ever, contrive to get even this solace ; and Wordsworth, 

 looking upon mountains as his own peculiar sweethearts, was 

 jealous of anybody else who ventured upon even the most 

 innocent flirtation with them. As if such fellows, indeed, 

 could pretend to that nicer sense of what-d ye-call-it which 

 was so remarkable in him ! Marry come up ! Mountains, 

 no doubt, may inspire a profounder and more exclusive 

 passion, but on the whole I am not sorry to have been born 

 and bred among more domestic scenes, where I can be hos 

 pitable without a pang. I am going to ask you presently to 

 take potluck with me at a board where Winter shall supply 

 whatever there is of cheer. 



I think the old fellow has hitherto had scant justice done 

 him in the main. We make him the symbol of old age or 

 death, and think we have settled the matter. As if old age 

 were never kindly as well as frosty ; as if it had no reverend 

 graces of its own as good in their way as the noisy imperti 

 nence of childhood, the elbowing self-conceit of youth, or 

 the pompous mediocrity of middle life. As if there were 

 anything discreditable in death, or nobody had ever longed 

 for it ! Suppose we grant that Winter is the sleep of the 

 year, what then ? I take it upon me to say that his dreams 

 are finer than the best reality of his waking rivals. 



Sleep, Silence child, the father of soft Rest, 



is a very agreeable acquaintance, and most of us are better 

 employed in his company than anywhere else. For my own 

 part, I think Winter a pretty wide-awake old boy, and his 

 bluff sincerity and hearty ways are more congenial to my 

 mood, and more wholesome for me, than any charms of 

 which his rivals are capable. Spring is a fickle mistress, 

 who either does not know her own mind, or is so long in 

 making it up, whether you shall have her or not have her 



